Kontron opens up OPNFV Pharos community lab using Fraser release

Kontron opens up OPNFV Pharos community lab using Fraser release

Service providers and leading vendors can collaborate, develop and test various NFV and SDN use cases from the SYMLAB colo environment using SYMKLOUD converged platforms

Montreal, CANADA, May 21, 2017 – Kontron, a global provider of open source cloud and integrated infrastructure platforms, today is pleased to announce its commitment to support the OPNFV Project with the installation of a Pharos community lab, one of 18 existing vendor-built labs. In the spirit of a global-wide DevOps practice, this new lab is open to all developers to safely validate, integrate, onboard, and test NFVI, VIM, VNFs, and network services for a multitude of NFV and SDN use cases on Kontron production-ready hardware.

OPNFV is a collaborative project under The Linux Foundation that is transforming global networks through open source Network Functions Virtualization (NFV).

The recently released OPNFV Fraser platform made the timing of a Kontron Pharos lab ideal in light of all the improved features around functional, performance, stress, and benchmark testing. Fraser also introduces new tools for carrier-grade monitoring, service assurance, networking, and dataplane acceleration. And, with the increased interest of ONAP (Open Network Automation Platform), both the OPNFV and ONAP communities are collaborating more – namely the OPNFV AUTO and ONAP Integration projects – in order to fit the requirements for NFV.

A safe test environment

The Kontron Pharos lab is hosted in SYMLAB, a remote and safe test environment located in a modern co-location data center, already used for service providers and software vendors to test and benchmark telecom, video, and cloud applications on Kontron SYMKLOUD hardware.

The Pharos Pod is installed on dedicated high density infrastructure using the SYMKLOUD MS2900 Series of converged platforms . Fraser is configured on a mere MS2911 2U 10GbE platform that is populated with up to nine (9) modular server nodes including the five IA nodes needed for compute. While the current set up is based on Canonical OpenStack and the JOID deployer, Kontron is capable of alternate configurations depending on demand.

Testing Containers

Based on the new features in Fraser, Kontron expects future configuration testing scenarios to possibly include container, Kubernetes/Docker test use cases, in addition to software defined networking (SDN) using OpenDaylight (ODL).

“OPNFV and its community members are extremely active in delivering open source NFV, with a strong emphasis on testing,” said Heather Kirksey, VP, Community and Ecosystem Development, The Linux Foundation and executive director of OPNFV. “We are thrilled to welcome Kontron as a new community member and welcome their new perspectives and contributions to collaborative testing and CI/CD to further advance open source networking.”

“Kontron has made monumental strides in such a short amount of time to deploy in-house CI/CD team resources and supply production-ready open source cloud provisioning solutions. It’s part of our ‘Metal to OpenStack’ mission to alleviate the burden of integrating complex open source software on converged hardware,” said Éric Sarault, Product Manager – software and services, at Kontron. “But there is a continual stream of work to integrate other upstream projects. The OPNFV Project is critical to success of the entire community to standardize and make sure everything works seamlessly.”

Similarly to our SYMLAB sign up process, simply go to the SYMKLOUD.com Pharos Lab page and make a request for access.

About Kontron in Communications

Kontron designs hardware for the software defined world. Service providers and enterprise clients around the globe collaborate with Kontron and its ISV and channel partners to deploy new services with greater speed, confidence and operational efficiency. Our portfolio is a best-of-breed of OEM hardware and SYMKLOUD Open Infrastructure Platforms dedicated to the deployment of virtual services using software defined networks (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV). For more information, please visit www.symkloud.com or www.kontron.com/communications.

About Kontron

Kontron, a global leader in embedded computing technology and trusted advisor in IoT, works closely with its customers, allowing them to focus on their core competencies by offering a complete and integrated portfolio of hardware, software and services designed to help them make the most of their applications. With a significant percentage of employees in research and development, Kontron creates many of the standards that drive the world’s embedded computing platforms; bringing to life numerous technologies and applications that touch millions of lives. The result is an accelerated time-to-market, reduced total-cost-of-ownership, product longevity and the best possible overall application with leading-edge, highest reliability embedded technology. Kontron is a listed company. Its shares are traded in the Prime Standard segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on other exchanges under the symbol “KBC.”

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